Nationally, over 3 million (4.3%) youth under the age of 18 are reported to hold a disability.1 Likely because there is no single definition of ‘disability,’ estimates of youth with disabilities living in the US oftentimes vary across studies. Though it is unclear at the population level how many sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary) have disabilities, recent research using a national non-probability sample found that nearly 1 in 5 youth reported at least one disability.2 Similar to SGM youth, youth with disabilities experience bullying, victimization, and dating violence at higher levels than their peers.3,4 Given that these experiences are linked to suicide ideation and drug use,4 it may be important to investigate whether SGM youth with disabilities are at increased risk for these forms of violence when experiencing both minoritized sexual/gender identities and a disability.

SGM youth are consistently shown to experience disparities in wellbeing.5 For instance, SGM youth have higher odds of experiencing bullying than their heterosexual and cisgender peers.6,7 Gender minority youth, in particular, experience high levels of sexual assault, especially when they report that they are unable to access safe restroom and locker room spaces.8 These experiences of bullying and assault are particularly concerning given their associations with depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicide in both adolescence and adulthood.9,10

According to the minority stress model, SGM youth may experience minority stress (i.e., stress that results from heterosexism, anti-bisexual prejudice, and cissexism). These sources of stress can be distal and occur in one's environment (e.g., prejudicial events, violence) or proximal in that the stress is internal to the individual (e.g., concealment, expectations of rejection). Chronic exposure to these stressors place SGM youth at an increased risk for psychological distress and adverse health outcomes—ultimately contributing to health and wellbeing disparities.11 SGM youth with disabilities may experience intersecting systems of discrimination related to ableism as well as heterosexism/cissexism, and thus may face particularly complicated or worsened well-being.12, 13, 14

The body of literature that considers youth who simultaneously hold sexual and gender minority identities and have a disability is notably sparse. However, emerging research seems to suggest that SGM youth with disabilities disproportionately experience adverse social events related to minority stress. For instance, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) 2019 National School Climate Survey found that, nationally, 35% of SGM students were bullied or harassed based on actual or perceived disability.15 Furthermore, sexual minority youth with disabilities, reported increased rates of bullying/victimization relative to sexual minority youth without disabilities.16 Research that has utilized adult samples has found that transgender individuals with disabilities were more likely to have experienced numerous forms of victimization including dating violence, sexual assault, and other physical violence.17 If similar trends exist for youth, it may be that SGM youth with disabilities also experience greater stress and feel less safe at school. Social safety theory suggests that it is not just minority stress that contributes to health problems among SGM youth, but also an absence of social safety (i.e., social connection/belongingness). This absence creates a lack of safety may feed into chronic threat-vigilance which can have negative long-term effects on both mental and physical immunological functioning.18

To advance an emerging field related to the health and well-being of SGM youth living with disabilities, we utilized a large national dataset to determine whether SGM youth with disabilities experienced greater victimization, bullying, dating violence, stress and a lessened feeling of school safety relative to SGM youth who did not report a disability. Findings may provide school administration opportunities to design and implement policies/programming related to school climate that specifically support SGM students with disabilities.